Rating: ★★½ Genres: Drama Censor: U Duration: 130 min. Studio/presenter:  Bipin Shah Motion Pictures Producer(s): Bhavana Bipin Shah, Sarika Vinod Tambe Director: Shantanu Anant Tambe Writer: Shantanu Anant Tambe Cinematographer (DOP):  Raj Kadur Cast: Mitali Mayekar, Hansraj Jagtap, Akash Waghmode, Sumit Bhokase, Santosh Chaupade, Akash Gharat Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Stories on the subject of street children have always inspired Marathi film makers. ‘Well Done Bhalya’ and ‘Half Ticket’ are the recent examples. Now, Shantanu Anant Tambe, who had earlier made a film ‘Majhi Shala’, presents two such street children Gatar ( Hansraj Jagtap) and Nala( Akash Waghmode) who work for a local Gangster in city of Mumbai. Actually, they have a group of four friends, the other two being Chaddi and Pari. One day, when Nala fails in his duty, the Gangster beats him up, having suffered a big loss. Gatar who is close friend of Nala, bangs a water pot on the Don’s head and both of them run away from that place.

They land in Chiplun ( Konkan) and find shelter in a Boys hostel of a local school. Initially Prasad ( Ashish Gade) and Rahul (Sumit Bhokse)hesitate to offer them shelter next day, as the house keeping people clean the rooms, while the boys are in class. So, Nala prefers to watch the cricket net practice, while Gatar attends the class, along with Prasad and Rahul, wearing school uniform of one of them. Nala impresses cricket Coach Arjun Sir( Sandeep Gaikwad) , who after hearing his past story, goes out of his way to help him and also his friend to attend class unofficially, taking the class teacher Sonal madam( Neesha Parulekar) into confidence. So, we find Nala & Gatar attending class along with Prasad and Rahul in the same class.

What really happens when the school principal Wanzode Sir comes to know about their plan, has been shown in a dramatic way, in the post interval session of the film. The story of Nala and Gatar has been narrated by one of the characters in this story to his co passenger, during the flight of a plane.

The makers of this film had good intention of showing how the street children could be brought into mainstream, if offered proper education and grooming them into activities of their interest. But, their presentation part in the screenplay fails to appeal. A lot of time has been wasted in taking liberties to show Nala and Gatar into all such bad habits of smoking and drinking alcohol in the school premises and even offering the same to their so called friends Prasad and Rahul. This sends a wrong message to young audience. To bring their friendship more closer, they haven’t done anything special, except for Gatar helping Prasad to express his love to his 9th standard classmate Rani( Mitali Jagtap) and both of them teaching a lesson to a boy called Rane, who is blocking their love.

The success story of Nala in the game of cricket, is almost identical with the story of a young cricketer in the Marathi film ‘Well Done Bhalya’ released in the recent past. The director has paid more attention on bad words spoken by Nala and Gatar instead of focussing more on their body language. Instead, he could have paid more attention on their reforms, in the company of Prasad and Rahul. In the screenplay, this film has done the same mistake, what the makers of ‘Well Done Bhalya’ had done, by selecting the non student of the school to play for the school’s team. There are many more unconvincing scenes, which have failed to appeal the audience.

Only good part about the film are the performances of Hasraj Jagtap , Akash Waghmode and Mitali Mayekar. Good support comes from Sandeep Gaikwad, in the role of cricket coach and also from Aashish Gade , Sumit Bhokse and others. The only good song in the film is shown at the end of the film. Background music of Sachin-Dipesh is fine and so is the cinematography of Raj kadur. ‘Yaari Dosti’ has turned out to be Just an average entertainer and a dream seller for the underprivileged children. But, can they afford to see this film in theatres?